


cos I only need your name to call the reasons why I fought

by cloudlesslysky



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Getting Together, Horcrux Hunting, Humour, Light Angst, M/M, POV Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudlesslysky/pseuds/cloudlesslysky
Summary: Ron and Hermione leave the Horcrux hunt, leaving a hurt Harry behind.But at least Draco is still there with him.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 164
Collections: HD Wireless 2020





	cos I only need your name to call the reasons why I fought

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to primavera-cerezos (on tumblr) for helping me out!
> 
> Title comes from the song used, War by Poets of the Fall

The silence in the tent is horrifying.

Ron and Hermione are gone, leaving only Harry and Draco behind. Harry feels destroyed, betrayed. He glances up to take in Draco's facial expression, and winces when he realises that Draco? Draco is livid.

Harry isn't really surprised; Draco has been complaining about the fact that they're wearing the Horcrux for days now. He didn't want to wear it, he didn't want any of them to wear it. He fought them on it in a way he hasn't fought with them on _anything_ really throughout this entire journey. But this particular thing? He was willing to draw blood on it.

In the end, the rest of them voted him down. Harry now realizes that that was a mistake. Draco was right all along. As worried as they were about losing the Horcrux, wearing it has clearly been the wrong decision. It soured their moods and drew them closer and closer to paranoia, and now Harry doesn't know what to do with himself.

His two best friends have left him, and he doesn't know what to do without them. They've been with him the entire time, and he can't imagine going on without them by his side.

“I've had it!" Draco suddenly yells and gets to his feet. He stomps off into the forest and Harry watches him, afraid that he's leaving too. That just like Ron and Hermione, he won't come back.

Of course, in typical Draco fashion, he lives to subvert Harry's expectations. Just a few minutes later, he comes storming back into the tent carrying something in his hand, his face still thunderous.

“Give me the damn thing!” Draco yells and holds his hand out.

Harry stares at him, probably for longer than he should, before he slowly reaches out and puts the locket in Draco's open palm.

Draco immediately pulls out his wand and starts to cast charm after charm, and soon he has some sort of box tied to a fake leather strap which he then puts around his own hips like a belt.

“I don’t trust this thing at all, and I know we can’t lose it—not after everything we went through to get it. But if you think we're going to keep wearing this cursed thing, then you're absolutely mad, Harry.”

Harry just shrugs his shoulders listlessly. At this point he's not even sure if he cares what Draco is doing or not. Ron and Hermione have abandoned them, so what does anything matter anymore?

Besides, does it matter if they lose it? Is not like they can destroy it anyway.

“Now get up you sad sack of sadness,” Draco hisses at him with a very ugly expression on his face. Harry isn't used to Draco looking anything but really pretty, these days. Even at their most dirty and dishevelled, Draco has somehow always managed to look beautiful.

Which isn't really something Harry likes to think about too much. He just tries to ignore it most of the time. He sometimes feels kind of bad for even thinking the thought; shouldn't he be thinking about Ginny? Of course, he _did_ break up with Ginny before all of this. So he doesn't really have anything to be apologetic about, especially since it's just that he thinks Draco is pretty, right?

It always makes Harry's head hurt, so he just pushes the thought away and decides to ignore it again.

“We have no time to lose. I doubt they can find us here, but I just used a bunch of magic and I don't _trust_ that they won't find us. We're moving.” Draco is looking around the area, lips pursed.

“Draco…”

“Well, actually, before we do _anything_ , I am going to cast a few spells to clean us up, because I am tired of being dirty and wet. I'm going to repair the tent too.”

  


* * *

  


“Maybe we should give up,” Harry mutters to himself.

Draco whips around so quickly Harry's almost certain that it's magic. No human has reflexes like that, surely.

“I suppose you're more of a sad sack of tears, depression and idiocy than I ever gave you credit for," Draco snarls, eyes alight with anger. "Okay, so your friends left. So what? You still have me! Why are you all of a sudden giving up as if I'm not worth anything? As if my support is useless and there's nothing you and I can do to resolve this situation?”

Harry shakes his head. "It's not _you_ , Draco. It's just... We still don't know how to get rid of the Horcrux. How are we supposed to do this?”

“What do you _mean_ we don't know how to destroy the Horcrux?” Draco looks absolutely aghast.

Harry stares at him, not sure what to think about this. Why on Earth is Draco acting as if this is news?

“Well, we don't... that's why— that's why Ron left. I don't quite know why Hermione went with him, but... I guess it's because she's in love with him.”

Draco looks at him, face completely blank. He crosses his arms over his chest and snorts inelegantly before he rolls his eyes.

“Oh,” he says. “Is that what he was yelling about? I wasn't listening.”

Harry starts to sputter in surprise. They've been agonizing about this for weeks, and somehow Draco hasn't noticed? He hasn't been listening to them at all?

“We've been talking about it for weeks! It wasn't just when Ron left that we—that it came up! Haven’t you been listening to what we’ve been saying this entire time?”

Draco just shrugs and looks down at his nails, seemingly disinterested.

“Look, you've all been complaining so much I just started tuning you out. It reminded me of when Pansy would get into a snit at school.” He doesn't even have the decency to look up at Harry.

Harry just stares at him, unable to process what he's hearing. He can't believe this.

“I figured we all knew what we were planning to do, I just didn't know why we were all hanging out here for so long. I suppose I expected that this was all part of the plan.”

“Part of the—! We didn't have a plan! We've just been trying to come up with some way to destroy the Horcrux and some way to find the other ones.” Harry pinches the bridge of his nose and tries not to blow up on Draco completely. He doesn't want to alienate one more of his friends... even if Draco is a very weird acquaintance-that's-barely-a-friend at best.

“Well! If we don't actually _need_ to stay in this dreadful forest, then I know precisely what we should be doing. We should go to Malfoy Manor,” Draco says, as if that wasn't the craziest thing Harry has heard all week. All year even.

“Why the hell should we go to Malfoy Manor?” Harry almost wants to strangle Draco. He talks so much and says so little.

“To find something to destroy the Horcrux with, of course. Why else would we go anywhere? Well, besides getting out of this dreadful weather and not having to stay in a tent anymore. I mean. Those are some rather self-evident reasons for going to Malfoy Manor.”

“You have something to destroy the Horcrux with at Malfoy Manor? How the hell do you know that?”

Draco snorts loudly. “Not to be the person to bring it up, but I was actually raised in the Wizarding World by people who haven't given up on all things proprietary and useful—!”

“Oh, don't start!” Harry's going to strangle him. He's absolutely going to strangle him if it doesn't start talking clearly and stop getting sidetracked in these endless rants about nothing useful at all.

“Anyway, there _are_ a few things that can destroy just about anything." Draco puts his nose in the air. "They're that type of dark magic that only very few things can withstand naturally, the kind that unless you're casting protection charms against them _specifically_ , they're just going to be able to override whatever protections you’ve set up. The first is Fiendfyre; it will obliterate everything and leave nothing behind. You _can_ contain it, I'm sure there are some places that could contain Fiendfyre, actually, but those are _containers_. Which this locket is not. The second thing, which is really rather of the same calibre, is Basilisk venom. While we really shouldn't be playing with Fiendfyre—goodness, can you imagine if we just let Fiendfyre loose everywhere? We’d kill ourselves before we did anything useful with it. It's _very_ dark magic which is difficult to cast and even harder to control, so we really shouldn't be messing with it.

"However! I happen to know that we have a bottle of Basilisk venom at the Manor, and _that_ is simple enough to control. Not the Basilisk itself, of course. You have to be a Parseltongue for that, which I know you are, but still. There is no guarantee that the Basilisk would listen to you even though you’re capable of talking to it, so we really shouldn't be taking chances with that kind of thing. Not that I even know where we would find a Basilisk in the first place. You can't even _imagine_ the amount of spells you need to cast to properly contain Basilisk venom. Father spoke about it a lot, when he warned me away from that particular vial. He didn't want me to get hurt by accident, you see. He knew I like to snoop around and that he couldn't exactly stop me.”

Harry stares at him for a long time, trying to parse what the hell Draco just said, before he realizes that Draco's right. If the diary was a Horcrux—and Harry is sure that it was— then the Basilisk venom was what destroyed it. After all, Harry used the fang of the dead Basilisk to pierce the diary and that was when the ghost of Tom Riddle disappeared.

“Do you really have Basilisk venom at Malfoy Manor?” Harry finally says, mouth as dry as a desert.

“Absolutely,” Draco says cheerfully. “Just a few drops of that and we will be free of this locket forever. Of course, if we had the Sword of Gryffindor, that would be even better. We wouldn't even have to worry about running out of poison or anything. However, no such luck, so we'll just have to take what we can get.”

Harry nods his head slowly. Going to Malfoy Manor is probably a bad idea, but at this point... what else can they do?

That was one thing that stuck out in his mind though.

“Wait. What was that about the Sword of Gryffindor?”

Draco snorts loudly. “The Sword of Gryffindor is just, you know, one of the greatest examples of goblin smithing, Potter. From what I've been told, it will retain the essence of anything that will strengthen it, and since _you_ killed a Basilisk with it from what you've told me, it should imbued with Basilisk venom and thus—sort of—the capabilities of a Basilisk fang even now, years later. I have no doubt that we would be able to use the Sword of Gryffindor to destroy these horcruxes, if Basilisk venom works. Which I'm sure it does.”

“Goblin made? I thought they were bankers…” Harry stares at Draco, confused. He has to admit that he didn't listen too well in Binns's lessons regarding the Goblin Wars, but it's still kind of weird. He feels like he should have at least remembered _something_ about goblins making swords.

“You're such a muggle-born, even though you're not actually a muggle-born,” Draco sniffs, and lifts his nose in the air in that snobbish way he does.

“Can't you ever just explain something? Do you always have to come with the insults first?” Harry's kind of used to it by now, but it feels like they don't really have the time to stand around chatting about this. They should do something, now that they have a goal.

Draco gives him a look of pure affront before he crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

‘ _Sensitive wanker_ ,’ Harry thinks, though not without affection.

“Despite what the modern Ministry of Magic would like for you to believe, goblins aren't all about money and banking. We Malfoys are an old enough line that we _remember_ , we don't need the Ministry to tell us.”

Harry rolls his eyes, but doesn't interrupt this time. He's just going to let Draco go off on these tangents and talk about how great his family is since it seems like that will actually make things progress quicker than if Harry tries to make him get to the point.

“Goblins choose one single Life Passion, which they dedicate their lives to. That's why they're so good at whatever their passion is, and why the bankers at Gringotts—who you must understand are goblins who chose banking, I suppose, or finance as their Life Passion—are way better at running a bank then us a Wizards could ever hope to be.

“The Malfoy Manor gardens actually used to be taken care of by a goblin couple who chose gardening for their passion. Anyway, since goblins can choose any passion they want, some of them have chosen smithy, of course. So there really is nothing that can compare to a goblin made sword for example, simply because goblins live for so long and dedicate their lives to perfecting their craft.”

“Right,” Harry says and squints at Draco. “So you're saying the Sword of Gryffindor was made by goblins? I kind of assumed that Godric Gryffindor made it himself…”

“That’s probably what he wanted people to think, but he didn't. Though,” Draco pauses for a brief moment. “He must have impressed the goblin very much, since they actually named the sword after him rather than themselves. That's something, I suppose.”

“Right, well... We have no idea where the Sword of Gryffindor is and no way of getting it, so I suppose we'll just have to go to Malfoy Manor and get some Basilisk venom then.” Harry sighs.

Draco grins and claps his shoulder.

“It's been some time since I last saw my home, to see it again. Hopefully it hasn't fallen entirely into disrepair while we've been gone. Father told the house elves not to go there, so it definitely hasn't been cleaned. I don't think he wanted them to end up in trouble. You know, if the Death Eaters decided to try and invade it. That would have been bad for both of them and us. Though it _is_ warded to the skies and back, so anyone who’s not me, Mother, or Father—or coming in with us—is going to be able to get in there. And since Mother and Father decided that _one_ time hanging out with You-Know-Who was more than enough and decided to not join his ranks again, they’re hardly going to be leading anyone through the wards.

“One never knows, of course. You-Know-Who _is_ rather skilled and powerful, so he might have tried anyway. Maybe even succeeded if he knew where to attack. I doubt it though; Father says he doesn’t appear to be a _true_ Pureblood, and none of the actual purebloods hold the secrets to the Malfoy Manor wards anyway. I doubt they’re intelligent enough to figure it out even if they’ve been keepers of their own Family Wards. So it’ll be fine!”

Harry just stares at Draco, marvelling at how blithely he talks about the possibility that the Death Eaters may have invaded Malfoy Manor—this same Malfoy Manor they’re supposed to be heading to.

He doesn't say anything though, and just sighs instead. He doesn't think it would do any good if he _did_ try to say something. Draco only seems to listen to what he actually wants to hear.

  


* * *

  


They sneak into Malfoy Manor under the cover of night, even though Draco reassures Harry that there is no chance that any Death Eaters are squatting there. In the end, he agrees with Harry that it's for the best that they're as careful as they possibly can be.

Harry feels on edge, nervous beyond belief. Even though Draco has sworn up and down that his parents locked the Manor up and warded against intruders, when they hid themselves away after choosing not to rejoin Voldemort, Harry still can't help but fear that the Death Eaters have somehow gotten inside. They could be lying in wait, ready to catch them off-guard.

He doesn't really like the idea of coming inside like a thief in the night, but they have no choice. If Voldemort and his Death Eaters have managed to get into Malfoy Manor, then Harry and Draco must be extremely careful. They cannot risk getting caught. If they are… It'll be the end of everything.

Just as they step up to the grounds, creeping in from the forest, Harry feels as if something sweeps over him; almost like a film of something cold, or a thin layer of silk. It strokes against his cheek and he can't stop himself from shuddering. He can't really explain the sensation, but he has no doubt that it's magic.

“Draco," he whispers. “I just felt something. It might be Voldemort, he might have set up a trap for us here.”

Draco snorts, but at least he keeps it as quiet as possible.

“That was just the Manor wards, Harry. They were sensing whether or not you are an intruder, or if you're allowed to be here.”

“How did it know that I'm not an intruder?”

Draco turns his head around and gives Harry the smuggest smile Harry has seen in a while.

“You're with me, of course.”

Harry just rolls his eyes. He should have known.

They make it up to the actual Manor without any sort of incident, but Harry still feels unsure. Ever since Ron and Hermione left them, he just can't seem to get control over his nerves. Their leaving must have shaken him worse than he ever could have imagined, but they were his only friends for so long that he just sort of thought they'd always be together. He never expected them to leave him behind.

He shakes his head to stop focusing on the negative. They have a chance to find something that should be able to destroy the locket and that is something to celebrate. He also feels better, now that he doesn't have the locket hanging around his neck every now and again. He's still worried that they will lose it, but Draco hasn't allowed him to have it back since he put it in the bag so... Harry's just going to have to trust that Draco is taking care of it.

They make it inside, and Harry finds himself looking around at their opulent and extravagant surroundings. The Manor truly is a manor. Harry hasn't seen a house like this before. He's always known that Draco is rich, but he never really considered _how_ rich. But judging by the Manor? Extremely rich.

“We need to get to my father’s second study,” Draco whispers. “It's a secret one that he keeps all the dangerous stuff in. I'm technically not allowed inside, and he made sure that no one really _can_ get inside without his permission, but..." Draco shrugs one shoulder elegantly. “I've learned how to break in.”

“How?” Sometimes Harry really doesn't understand Draco's relationship with his parents. Or really Draco's parents’ take on childcare and magic in general. They seem very blasé about the kind of shit Draco gets into—as long as he doesn't get hurt that is.

“I'm a Slytherin, we're all about ambition and cunning. Actually, Father might have thought that it was a pretty good exercise for me, to see if I could break in without him finding out. You never know when it will come to your aid—knowing how to break into something secure without being caught. 

“If you three had known how to break into the Ministry without getting caught, we wouldn't have had to spend all that time hanging out in tents in that bloody awful forest.” Draco gives Harry a smug look.

Clearly he's still annoyed that he didn't get to come along to the Ministry, and that they instead had to send a message his way so he could come to them afterwards.

Now that Harry thinks about it, it's pure luck that he and Draco are even here right now. Draco might never have found them in the forest and then Harry... he would be all alone.

He doesn't like thinking about _that_ at all.

“Nothing seems to be disturbed here, which is a good thing. There's a lot of dust though, and that's likely going to drive the house elves _mad_ when all of this is over and we can move back in.”

Harry doesn't say anything, but he's kind of relieved that Hermione isn't here right now. She would probably start talking about elves’ rights again, and he doesn't want to hear her and Draco square off about it. It just seems like it would be a very uncomfortable situation for all of them. At the same time, however, he misses her. He misses rolling his eyes in time with Ron as Hermione and Draco get into some squabble about something or other, usually for no reason beyond an excuse to get to have an intellectual debate.

“So no Death Eaters, then?”

Draco shakes his head. “No, but we should still probably be careful just in case. Let's not take any chances. If we don't, we might be able to actually sleep inside after we get the poison and destroy the locket.”

That sounds like absolute heaven, and Harry is not going to argue about how they shouldn't because it might be dangerous. He thinks he deserves to have at least _some_ comfort. He’s slept in a tent for way too long already, even though it's not as cramped anymore now that Ron and Hermione aren't there.

They sneak through the house until they finally get to a blank wall. There's nothing but fancy looking wallpaper. They've already passed a few doors, but the place where Draco stops, there is no door.

“Here we go,” Draco whispers and lifts his wand in the air.

Harry watches as Draco performs some quite frankly amazing-looking feats of magic, and then a door appears.

Draco grins widely, and Harry can help but think that he's absolutely beautiful. Nothing suits Draco better than a smile.

“Now come on, you dunce. Don't just stand there with your mouth gaping open. Let's get this show on the road so we can get this stupid locket destroyed as quickly as possible.”

 _‘Here's to hoping it works_ ,’ Harry thinks.

  


* * *

  


Harry stares at the locket, and then to the vial in Draco's hand.

“Should we destroy it entirely, or do you think there's some other way we can do this?”

Draco shrugs his shoulders, but doesn't answer. Instead he opens the locket and steps away from it.

“One single drop in each of these windows should do it, I think.”

Before either of them can do anything else, suddenly the locket starts to vibrate and shadowy figures start to rise from it.

A hissing voice rises from the locket. “He doesn't think you're as good as them, Draco. All this time you've been helping him, and he's been pining for his _real_ friends.”

The figures take the shape of Ron and Hermione, both their faces are twisted in mocking sneers.

“You won't ever be able to match our place in Harry's heart. You'll only ever be second-best, not as good as us. You’re not his real friend, you're just a stand-in while we are gone. The second we deign to come back, he's going to throw you away like yesterday's trash.”

The apparitions start laughing sneeringly. Harry turns on his feet immediately staring at Draco, watching as he turns frighteningly pale.

“It's not true, Draco! You _are_ my friend and not just because Ron and Hermione aren't here!” Harry's heart beats so loudly in his ears that he can barely hear anything besides it. He just hopes that Draco will believe him.

“He's just saying that, you know. He doesn't like you as much as he likes us, never will. You will never mean the same thing to him, as we do.”

Draco’s hands shake as they clutch the vial of Basilisk venom. When Harry turns his gaze to Draco's face instead, he looks close to tears.

“You mean a lot to me, even though our friendship is different. We just haven't been friends as long. That doesn't mean that you're not my friend or that I don't care! It's just lying! Draco!”

Perhaps he's being too honest about all of this, but he can't help it. His friendship with Draco _is_ different, just not in the way that the horcrux is implying. It's not that Draco doesn't mean as much to him, or because they haven't been friends as long... It's just that Draco is... Draco. And Harry wants to kind of snog him. Sometimes. But he's never wanted to snog Hermione or Ron. So his friendship with Draco is fundamentally different.

Draco shudders and seems to pull himself together, and then he swiftly opens the vial and before Harry knows it, one drop of Basilisk venom lands on each of the windows of the open locket.

The locket lets out a loud shrieking noise, and it almost sounds like a dying animal. Last death rattle of something unspeakable. It makes sense, Harry supposes, since it's a bit of Voldemort's soul. But it's still extremely unsettling.

Draco closes the vial again and dries some tears off his face.

“Well that's that then,” he says with a voice that's far shakier than he most likely means for it to be. Harry doesn't like to hear him sound so small and shaken. Draco is supposed to be unflappable, or well not really because he's very dramatic but... He doesn't know what he was thinking. Draco is really dramatic and likes playing up everything that happens to him. He's definitely not unflappable, but there's still something that feels _wrong_ about hearing Draco sound so scared and upset.

“It worked,” Harry breathes with unfathomable relief.

“Just as I told you it would,” Draco says, his voice now holding far more of his customary smugness and self-assuredness. It's a relief to hear him sound more like himself again. Harry wonders if maybe he just doesn't like to hear Draco be scared. Harry wouldn't like to hear Ron or Hermione be scared either, so it makes sense.

“You did tell me that, yeah.” Harry feels oddly breathless as he stares at Draco, who is now positively beaming with pride. It's a really good look on him. most things look really good on him, if Harry is being honest.

“Because I'm brilliant,” Draco continues, his face looking far more sly now. Harry gets the feeling that Draco is taking the piss out of him, but even so…

“Yeah, you are,” Harry breathes.

Draco stares at him then, and his face suddenly turns brilliantly red. Very much like a ripe tomato. and Harry realizes that there is actually something that does not look really good on Draco: he's not really an attractive blusher. It's splotchy and patchy and stands out so starkly against his pale skin it almost looks a bit weird.

It makes Harry want to snog him again.

He never has had very good self-control.

Draco feels very thin as Harry holds him, but the arms that wrap themselves around Harry's neck seem strong at least.

They clutch as at each other as they kiss almost frantically, Slytherin locket forgotten on the floor. Now that the horcrux is gone, Harry doesn't think he's ever been less interested in that damn thing.

“Good thing,” Draco pants in between kisses, “That we have a bed we will be staying in tonight.”

He wiggles his eyebrows, and Harry feels his own cheeks heat up. It's not the _only_ place that heats up though, and Harry can't help the excitement that just washes over him.

He absolutely wants to spend the night with Draco in a bed. He can't think of anything else he'd rather do right now.

  


* * *

  


Waking up the next morning, Harry feels the best he's felt in a long time. He still misses Ron and Hermione, of course he does, but he's finally had a good night sleep after… well after having a lot of fun with Draco in various positions. Not that either of them lasted very long, but they also were ready to go again quite quickly.

It was kind of weird and sometimes even a bit uncomfortable, but it's also the best thing he's ever felt in his entire life. It was even better than the first time he flew on a broom, he thinks. If it gets any better than this he's not sure that he'll actually survive it.

Draco is still asleep, face relaxed and lips slightly parted. He's very quiet, calm, in sleep, in a way that he never is when they're awake. Awake Draco is full of manic energy and is actually kind of hard to keep up with a lot of the time. Especially when he gets going on a tangent. Not that Harry minds, really; sometimes it’s actually very nice to listen to Draco when he gets going. A lot of the time even.

Harry kind of wishes they could stay here forever. That they would never have to leave this room, safe and warm. He wishes that the war was already over and that they didn't have to keep hunting for Voldemort horcruxes—that there was no more risk of any one of them being injured or dying as they're doing their best to try and stop a madman from essentially trying to take over the world.

He really wishes that this wasn't his destiny. Perhaps it's horrible of him, but he wishes that it had fallen on someone else. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he wishes Voldemort would have gone after Neville instead.

It's a terrible thing to think, and Harry will ever admit it to anyone. But sometimes he just really wishes that this wasn't what his life was. He didn't have a good childhood, because his aunt and uncle hated him so much. Couldn’t he at least have had a good adolescence once he had finally more or less escaped them? Why does he have to suffer all of this? Why does he have to have the task to stop Voldemort on his shoulders? It's not fair.

At least he has people on his side.

Well…

Ron and Hermione are gone, and he's going to have to live with that. But at least he still has Draco with him, right here on the front lines. Right here in the midst of the insanity that is teenagers trying to stop adults who are trying to murder all Muggles, and all muggle-borns, and most half-bloods.

Ron and Hermione are gone... But he can't dwell on that. If he does, he's just going to lose his mind. They were the only friends he had for so long, and he hates that they decided that it wasn't worth it to stay by Harry's side anymore. He knows that in part it was because of the locket—the horcrux slowly driving them to paranoia and lashing out at each other—but at the same time... There's a part of Harry that fears that was their real feelings. He knows they were just tired of having to live through this horrible situation, just because they're his friends. Just because they want to be loyal to Harry.

But in the end, there's nothing Harry can do except accept it and hope that at least Draco doesn't leave. At least Draco will stay by his side until the end of it all, no matter what that end will be.

  


* * *

  


“So, what do we do now?” Draco says and looks at Harry. They're eating a quick meal from one of the Manor's pantries, and Draco has stuffed some more food that will keep in Hermione's bag. At least Hermione didn't take that with her.

Harry crosses his arms over his chest, trying to think of what they should do next. Draco put the destroyed locket back inside the satchel he transfigured and then put _that_ into Hermione's bag, so they'll at least be able to summon the satchel if not the locket itself if they need it. He's not sure why they would need it now that the horcrux is gone, but he supposes that it is an important historical artefact.

“We need to try and figure out what the rest of the horcruxes are, and where to find them. We have to keep going, we can't stop now. We've made some headway, but now we just need to keep going.” Harry tries to sound more confident than he feels, because he really doesn't want Draco to lose faith in him too. He doesn't blame Ron, he knows that a lot of it was due to the horcrux, but it still hurts. And it hurts even more that Hermione went with him.

“Well,” Draco says and holds his chin as he thinks. “If my understanding is correct, You-Know-Who is obsessed with Hogwarts, right?”

“Yeah, Vol—!” Before Harry can finish the sentence, Draco slaps his hand over Harry’s mouth.

“Don't say it! We don't know if he's managed to place a taboo on his name so he knows when people say it. There are spells like that, they're old and not easy to pull off but... He has enough people on his side but he probably can do it. Let's not invite trouble, Harry.” Draco looks pale, and he doesn't move his hand from Harry’s face.

Harry nods. He's never heard of anything like it before, but if Draco says it then it’s probably just better to be safe.

“Right,” Harry says as soon as he's moved Draco's hand away. “Yes, _Thomas_ is very obsessed with Hogwarts. And especially the idea that he is related to Slytherin, as one of the Founders. I mean, he is, I think, but he's obsessed with the idea of it.”

Draco gives him a deeply unimpressed look. “Alright, so we're calling him Thomas now? Fine.” Draco rolls his eyes.

“Well, it's safer than any other alternative.” Harry shrugs.

“ _Anyway._ If he's that obsessed with Hogwarts, and the Founders in particular... Do you think it's possible that he used other objects that belonged to the Founders besides the locket?”

Harry straightens his back in surprise.

“Dumbledore theorised as much. He thought that maybe Hufflepuff’s cup could have been made into a horcrux. Of course, we didn't have any idea where it could be. He also said that he believed the snake Nagini to… to probably be a horcrux.”

“Well,” Draco says. “If we think that Helga Hufflepuff's cup might be one, then I'm going to say that we should also count Rowena Ravenclaw's missing diadem. It may be missing, but who’s more likely to find it than someone as obsessed as Thomas? Do you think the Sword of Gryffindor…?”

“No,” Harry says immediately. “Both that and the Sorting Hat have stayed safe in Dumbeldore’s office.”

“Okay, good. That fits. That evens the numbers.” Draco nods.

“All right, we're counting the ones we have... There was the diary, the ring, and Slytherin's locket. Those three we have already destroyed. If we count the snake, the cup and the diadem and assume that they are also horcruxes, that means Thomas made six horcruxes total.” That doesn't sound so bad to Harry, that means that they're halfway already.

“I'd rather not have to get anywhere near that snake. That would certainly be a horcrux that is capable of defending itself.” Draco shudders.

It's a grim thought, having to fight that snake. Especially doing so because it's the last of Voldemort's horcruxes. It's not just a dangerous snake, but it's always near Voldemort himself. It’s not exactly something they can sneak up on and take care of without being found out, which has been their approach so far.

Harry feels like he's lost his appetite, but he forces himself to eat anyway. They're going to have to eat a lot less when they go out on the road again, so he needs to be smart about it and eat his fill anyway.

“Well,” Draco finally says. “At least we have somewhere to head to next. Something we can try to research and see if we can find: Hufflepuff’s cup and Ravenclaw's diadem.”

Harry nods. They've gone further than they have before.

“And now we have a way to destroy them too: we have the Basilisk venom.” Harry says.

Draco grins at him, and Harry smiles back. It's not all bleak; they don't know a lot but they know more than they knew before. They're not as helpless as they used to be.

They finish their meal, but before he can say anything he feels the old Dumbledore's Army coin in his pocket heat up.

He pulls it out and looks at the edge of it. Instead of being numbers, there are letters. He has never seen it do that before.

W R U -JEAN

He stares at the letters uncomprehending. He has no idea what that means. He assumes that Jean is Hermione, since he knows that her full name is Hermione Jean Granger. It would be a simple way for her to use a code but not risk someone else having found Harry's coin he supposes. But what does the rest of it mean?

“What are you looking at, Harry?” Draco leans over the table, trying to catch a peek most likely.

“I think I just got a coded message from Hermione, but I'm not sure what it means.”

Draco blinks and tilts his head to the side.

“What does it say?”

“W R U…” As he reads it out loud, some of it becomes clear to Harry. “Wait, the last two could be ‘are you’, but what about the W?”

“If it's from Hermione, and it ends in ‘are you’...” Draco trails off, holding his chin. “Do you think maybe she's asking where you are? Maybe she and Ron came back to the forest... they're your friends, so maybe they changed their minds about leaving?”

“Do you think so? It would be very helpful for us if there were more of us than just the two of us, right?”

Draco nods. “If you're worrying about what the horcrux tried to scare me with... Don't. I don't want to be the same sort of friend to you that Ron and Hermione are anyway. Unless you want to kiss them too.”

Harry just laughs, his chest feeling lighter than it has in a long while.

“We'll need to be careful going back, of course, but I don't see why we can't. It's a good Next Step, and who knows, maybe they found something out while they were gone.” Draco is really trying to be optimistic, and it makes Harry smile.

“All right, let's do it then. Let's get back to the Forest of Dean and see if we can find Ron and Hermione.”

Harry feels lighter than he has in a long while. One more horcrux gone, and now Ron and Hermione might be coming back. And he's gotten to snog Draco and he's probably going to get to do that more going forward.

All in all, things are looking up.

“We have to _at least_ fix the tent up,” Draco says as they get ready to Apparate.

Harry laughs.

They don't know quite yet what they're heading into, and they don't know quite yet how they will be able to stop Voldemort. But they're going to do it, one way or another.

Voldemort won't even know what hit him.

**Author's Note:**

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